Books | A Boy Named Tracy

Archive - Books RSS Feed

WordPress 3.1 Release Candidate 2

January 1, 2011 in Books, Music with Comments Off

The second release candidate for WordPress 3.1 is now available. The requisite haiku:

Rounding up stragglers
Last few bugs for 3.1
Go test RC2

As I outlined in the announcement post for RC1, release candidates are the last stop before the final release. It means we think we’re done, and we again have no bugs to squash. But with tens of millions of users, many server configurations and setups, and thousands of plugins and themes, it’s still possible we’ve missed something.

Beta 1 came on Thanksgiving, RC1 on Christmas, and RC2 on New Year’s Day. We won’t be waiting for another holiday for the final release, though, so if you haven’t tested WordPress 3.1 yet, now is the time!

Select changes since RC1:

The security fixes included in WordPress 3.0.4
Fix issues related to handling a static front page
Fixes and enhancements for the pagination buttons
Fix searching for partial usernames
Properly reactivate plugins after editing them
Always show the current author in the author dropdown when editing a post
Fixes for attachment taxonomies
Fix node removal for the admin bar
Fix the custom post type show_in_menu argument
Various fixes for right-to-left languages
and a few dozen more changes

If you are testing the release candidate and think you’ve found a bug, there are a few ways to let us know:

Post it to the Alpha/Beta area in the support forums
Report it to the wp-testers mailing list
Join the development IRC channel and tell us live at irc.freenode.net #wordpress-dev
File a bug ticket on the WordPress Trac

To test WordPress 3.1, try the WordPress Beta Tester plugin (you’ll want “bleeding edge nightlies”). Or you can download the release candidate here (zip).

If any known issues crop up, you’ll be able to find them here. If you’d like to know which levers to pull in your testing, check out a list of features in our Beta 1 post.

Download WordPress 3.1 RC 2

3.0.4 Important Security Update

December 29, 2010 in Books, Music with Comments Off

Version 3.0.4 of WordPress, available immediately through the update page in your dashboard or for download here, is a very important update to apply to your sites as soon as possible because it fixes a core security bug in our HTML sanitation library, called KSES. I would rate this release as “critical.”

This issue affects all versions of WordPress prior to 3.0.4, so if you are still on a 2.X release you need to update as well.

I realize an update during the holidays is no fun, but this one is worth putting down the eggnog for. In the spirit of the holidays, consider helping your friends as well.

If you are a security researcher, we’d appreciate you taking a look over this changeset as well to review our update. We’ve given it a lot of thought and review but since this is so core we want as many brains on it as possible. Thanks to Mauro Gentile and Jon Cave (duck_) who discovered and alerted us to these XSS vulnerabilities first.

Gracenomics

October 18, 2010 in Books, Causes, Gracenomics with 3381 CommentGracenomics2010-10-18+14%3A50%3A59td

“Grace-whatie?” you say.

Gracenomics.

“What the heck is Gracenomics?” you ask?

Well, first off, Gracenomics is a book written by Mike Foster. It’s more than that though.

It’s a movement.

It’s a conversation.

It’s a cause.

It’s a way of life.

Foster explains it like this:

We’re setting out to be the living, breathing PEZ dispensers of grace for our world…We are grace dispensers who practice second chance living.

And:

GRACENOMICS is the science that deals with the production, distribution and consumption of grace.

Think about it for a minute. What would this world be like if we all started handing out…

Grace instead of judgment?

Grace rather than frustration?

Grace in lieu of resentment?

Grace over guilt and self-depreciation?

Think about how different this world would be! Continue Reading…

Burn Down the Bar

August 25, 2010 in Books, Spiritual Matters with 2981 CommentBurn+Down+the+Bar2010-08-25+21%3A55%3A28td

These past few days I’ve been reading Craig Groeschel’s book The Christian Atheist: When You Believe in God But Live as if He Doesn’t Exist. Groeschel provides the following account in his book concerning prayer.

A pastor once asked his church to pray that God would shut down a neighborhood bar. The whole church gathered for an evening prayer meeting, pleading with God to rid the neighborhood of the evils of this bar. A few weeks later, lightning struck the bar and it burned it to the ground.

Having heard about the church’s prayer crusade, the bar owner promptly sued the church. When the court date finally arrived, the bar owner passionately argued that God struck his bar with lightning because of the church members’ prayers. The pastor backtracked, brushing off the accusations. He admitted the church prayed, but he also affirmed that no one in his congregation really expected anything to happen.

The judge leaned back in his chair, a mix of amusement and perplexity on his face. Finally he spoke: “I can’t believe what I’m hearing. Right in front of me is a bar owner who believes in the power of prayer and a pastor who doesn’t.” (Groeschel, Craig, 2010. The Christian Atheist. Grand Rapids:Zondervan)

This story is quite an eye-opener for me. I’ll have to admit, there are several times I pray expecting nothing to happen. I’ve found myself praying for things that I really don’t think God will come through on. It’s not that I don’t believe God can fulfill these requests, it’s that I just don’t think He will. I don’t know which is worse, but I can tell you I am not so thrilled with my response.

Nate, our 10-year-old, when he asks for things he almost always starts his question with “Why can’t we…”. As a parent that drives me crazy. Let me clarify something here. It’s not that he has already asked for something and we’ve said no so he asking why. He’s asking why we can’t do something before he’s even asked the first time for it. I always tell him he needs to change the way he asks for things because usually the way he asks them makes me want to say no, even if I would have said yes.

Whoa. Hold it right there. Let me re-read that last paragraph.

[I'm serious, don't read any more until I'm done.]

[Ok. Done. Carry on.]

Well, don’t they say (whoever “they” are) that the things that drive you nuts about your kids are usually the traits they got from you? If nobody has, let me be the first:

The traits that your kids have that drive you the most crazy are in fact traits they inherited from you.

Could it be our Heavenly Father feels the same way? Could it be that God is less inclined to answer some of our prayers the way we want because we already are thinking He won’t?

Now there are times I give Nate what he’s asking for despite the way he asks. I’m sure God does to.

Is there something you’ve been praying for that you really don’t think God will come through on?

What’s in a Word Review

April 8, 2010 in Books with 1910 CommentsWhat%26%238217%3Bs+in+a+Word+Review2010-04-08+16%3A53%3A34td

What's in a Word by Webb Garrison

Book Description

Have you ever woken up on the wrong side of the bed? Did you make it to that early morning meeting by the skin of your teeth? Was your heart in the right place when you proposed that idea, even though you couldn’t hold a candle to the guy next to you who was born with a silver spoon in his mouth?

If you’ve ever wondered what that word or phrase you just heard means, What’s in a Word? is just the book for you. If you love words, this fascinating and humorous encyclopedia of more than three hundred fifty words and phrases and how they evolved will keep you entertained for hours.

What’s In a Word?: Fascinating Stories of More Than 350 Everyday Words and Phrases on Amazon

My Review

I have always wondered where certain words or phrases came from and so I chose to review this book. I was hoping that this book would be have some interesting facts along with some humor. To be honest, I found the book boring. I found no humor in it and found that some of the definitions were flat out obvious.

I would love to know where phrases like “Chip off the old block” or “Has a chip on his shoulder” or even “Spittin’ image” but if those are in the book I never got to it because I couldn’t make it through the first chapter. I hate to provide such a negative review of my first book, but I just didn’t get it nor can I recommend it.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from Thomas Nelson Publishers as part of their BookSneeze.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255 : “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”